


To Watch

by Helicon



Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Body Horror, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Porn With Plot, Possession, Pre-Canon, Tentacles, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 20:40:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11112444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helicon/pseuds/Helicon
Summary: The Hunt is over.





	To Watch

**Author's Note:**

> A prime example of self-indulgence in fanfiction: welcome to the AU where the Scourge is under control, Laurence is alive (if permanently a furry), and Gehrman doesn't have to wait so long to be freed. At a cost, of course, but still.
> 
> Also, I've almost officially graduated high school. I wrote this instead of studying for finals, which I did fine on anyway so there's nothing to worry about.

Runes buzzed within Laurence’s skull, screeching at a pitch too high to comprehend -- distressed, infuriated. Cheated. They’d had a deal: the Scourge was cured. Old Yharnam, a charred ghost town littered by beast corpses and slowly being rehabilitated. The Healing Church, abandoned by its flock and clergy, had fallen to ruin. Laurence, though monstrously deformed, had saved himself and countless others from full transformation. Yharnam was in no worse danger than it had been at the beginning, now overseen by the remnants of the Church Hunters (though they no longer called themselves this). The Hunt was over.

It was time for the Great One to make good on its end of the deal.

It was time for Gehrman to come home.

As much as Laurence tried to express that to the Moon Presence, she only grew more and more upset. She had become too accustomed to having humans about, and now that all of her Hunters were gone and she was about to lose her Host, she wanted to exploit a loophole: Laurence had asked for those immortal Hunters until the Scourge was contained. He'd said nothing about dismantling the Dream. He'd said nothing of its weary Host.

He had no time for the tantrums of even a god.

“We made our deal!” Laurence said. “The Hunt is over, we have no need for the Dream. You cannot stop me from taking back my friend.”

A single rune flashed behind his eyes.

_Watch._

The void closed with Laurence and Gehrman on the outside now, in each other’s arms, both worn by time but clinging hard to the other like they would be split again at any moment. When Laurence tried to pull away, Gehrman held tighter, fingers tangled in his hair and brushing against his horns, feeling them thoroughly and muttering, “No, no, no… you said you’d fixed it! You can't do this, Laurence!”

“It’s alright, Gehrman, I'm still here… I'm still me. There is nothing to worry about.”

“You’d better be.” His voice was quiet, hollow even. “I doubt that I'd have the strength to put down a beast right now.”

“And we’ll have no more of it. No more beasts and no more Dream, understand?”

“It's over…”

“Forever.”

“Don't promise that.”

“But I can, now!”

“Then what do I have left?"

Laurence put distance between them and met Gehrman’s wavering smile with his own, some sharp teeth poking out of his mouth but otherwise, a normal smile. In the darkness of the dusty Workshop, he could see supernaturally fine; enough to notice the glazed-over look in the hunter’s eyes. What was typically a steely blue, unfocused and looking far more grey. His smile faded.

It had to just be a temporary effect of having been trapped in another plane of existence for so long, much like the melancholy. Soon, Laurence would have his Hunter back.

The Moon Presence’s final words to him echoed in his mind.

_Watch._

Later, deeper into the night, Laurence awoke on the floor with Gehrman nowhere to be found. A feeling like lightning tore through the air and the fur on the back of his neck and lengthened face stood on end. His shoulders bunched as he stood.

From the very back, near the altar, raving mutters trailed off into a series of high-pitched chokes and gurgles. Otherworldly melodic despite the source, it caught Laurence’s attention immediately.

He didn't need to sprint.

He did anyway.

He stopped short of stumbling over Gehrman, curled on the floor, fingers dug into the wood. Laurence hefted him up by the shoulders, and realized it wasn't he who was shaking him. Hands now clasped to his own mouth, fingers much too long, Gehrman stared Laurence dead in the eye as his whole upper body twitched and jerked almost out of Laurence’s grasp.

“Help--” He gagged on the word, but at the same time, not the word. What color was left in his eyes faded further to a filmy white. As his body reeled backwards, still in Laurence’s hold, tendril protrusions spilled through the gaps between Gehrman’s fingers and curled around them.

_Watch._

Taking matters into his own claws, Laurence took hold of Gehrman’s hands and pried them off his face, forcing the little tendrils to let go and merge together, hanging limp like the panting tongue of a dog. Squinting, he examined the change: long fingers tapered into claws, completely bypassing nails, segmented by several brand new knuckles on each. Had he not just witnessed the reverse violation of his mouth, Laurence would have thought Gehrman had continued the process toward his own inevitable transformation. Now, it looked like he was faced with something new.

“Gehrman?” Laurence held his hands tightly. “Tell me you’re in there, somewhere.”

“Yes?” His voice echoed in Laurence’s head like the runes.

“Yes, you are with me?”

“I'm with you, Laurence, I… I’m not too terribly sure what just happened…”

“Can you see me?”

“Yes.”

“Clearly?”

“Plain as day.”

“How do you feel right now?”

“Right now? Woozy, a little… my hands are… _wet,_ why are they wet…”

Laurence stared at Gehrman, a little bit in disbelief. “Are you not concerned about the change?”

“I had that breakdown before you woke up. But, yes, I--”

In an instant, Gehrman doubled over and grabbed at his chest -- Laurence could smell his pulse rising, hear the creaking of bone, the manipulation of flesh that left him in a silent scream; but at the same time the ringing runes sounded off like bells in both their heads.

He smelled like moonlight. Alarmingly, penetratingly, like moonlight. And blood…

_Watch._

The lust, as ever, proved difficult to curb but Laurence knew he would not be able to get away with lapping at Gehrman’s ear while he was having a fully-fledged physical and psychological break. At the very most, he could stroke the back of his neck, pray it ended soon, and pretend he hadn't noticed the rippling beneath Gehrman’s coat.

Neither undressed that morning. Laurence took note of how Gehrman avoided the light as much as he did. He saw the absence of a shadow on the floor; only one when there should have been two. The unearthly glow that followed the hunter around that Laurence only seemed to notice when he wasn't actively looking for it -- like the faint ring of light around the moon in a clear night sky.

He didn't eat, or yawn, or take much pleasure in the things that once consumed every bit of his attention. Laurence saw no difference in his health save for the steadily more pronounced limp and the occasional mild, conscious seizure that he refused to see anybody for.

“These are no quirks of yours anymore,” Laurence commented once. “It’s serious! You could dislocate your shoulder and not see a real doctor about it, but--”

“I have.”

And that was that.

One evening, as the moon rose, Laurence got Gehrman into bed. In comparison to attempts of previous days to get anything done, this was a rousing success. He laid himself out like a painter’s model, curled two long fingers towards himself, and Gehrman only needed to shrug at himself before pouncing.

To be so easily tackled into the blankets by a man considerably his senior (and Laurence, despite the Blood, was no spry young or even middle-aged man…beast…anymore) was disconcerting at best, but the cool hands on his face and thigh between his legs and some other limb working up his chest distracted him well enough from everything except that one other limb.

Laurence looked down.

Gehrman stopped, his pale skin turning lighter to paper-white. “What?”

“It's just that I've never noticed the, ah… tentacles.” Laurence took it in his hand and gave it a firm squeeze, making Gehrman shudder. “I _would_ like to see the rest, though. Could you undress for me?”

“Must I?”

“I can't judge, you know that.”

It was hard to tell where Gehrman was looking now, but Laurence felt watched either way. Eventually he sighed, unbuttoning his shirt beneath which the tentacle slipped, wrapping around his waist where, when Gehrman finally dropped the shirt onto the floor behind him, Laurence saw that it was joined by a multitude of others to give, beneath clothing, the impression of a solid body despite a hollow abdominal cavity. His ribcage was mangled and exposed through translucent skin.

Hackles raised, Laurence scooted back on the bed in alarm.

“What did it--”

“She didn't want to let go.”

“I already knew as much, but to such an extent!” Off the bed Laurence stormed, towards the door. “The sex can wait. I want a word with the Great One, now.”

“Laurence!” Gehrman stood between Laurence and the door, blocking his path. “We are done with the Great Ones. What’s happened has happened, we made a deal with the wrong one and no amount of bitching and--and where are you going to get the material, Laurence?” His voice dropped to a deep bark, shoulders hunched but still looming a few inches over the incensed beast-man. “I'm not hunting down another baby god for you! _I_ barely got away with it the first time and my Hunters suffered for it anyway! You’ve no idea what I saw when I slept--”

“I won’t stand for--”

“You left her a loophole--”

“--don’t interrupt me!” Laurence snarled. “I won't stand to have my friend taken away from me because some creature has a... thing, for humans!”

“I haven't been taken away from you, Laurence!”

“You will be!” Even the half-formed peripheral eyes shone with new wetness. “I said it would never keep me from you and it said to watch. It's already taking you physically, what's to stop it?"

Running his tongue over needlepoint teeth in concern, Gehrman took Laurence in his arms and just his arms. “Contacting her would only give her an opening to do it sooner. Laurence--Laurence, love, I’m not leaving you… I was so worried I'd lost  _you_ but neither of those things will happen.”

“And if you start to lose yourself?”

“Didn't you?”

“Yes, but that was something I found a way to control.”

“...Then we’ll find a way to right it or we won't suffer it very long. Come back to bed? I'd rather not dwell on it and you shouldn't either.”

Laurence pressed his palm to Gehrman’s chest and was pulled in closer, lifted like a newlywed by far more than just two arms, and on his back in bed his hips were straddled and equally unsightly form revealed. His thin body, covered in shaggy fur and growths of bone, leaned up into every touch like he'd been starved of it. He didn't see Gehrman undress fully, but the feeling of bare, clammy skin against his legs told him enough, and perhaps there was a reason as to why he couldn’t see.

Something skinny and wet pressed against his hole and around it, up and down the cleft. Laurence sighed dreamily at the slickness, caught Gehrman’s bottom lip between his teeth, and gasped into his mouth when the tentacle pushed in. He opened readily, his cock poking out of its sheath and twitching to attention. Lazily pulled out and back in, it doubled upon itself inside Laurence, stretching him from within and making his breath hitch.

“How are you doing that?”

“I couldn't explain it proper if I tried.”

“Can you feel it?”

“Define ‘feel’.”

“Sexually. Is this getting you hard?”

“No, it's more like… another set of fingers, I suppose. Feels alright for you?”

“You have no idea… do it again, or at least touch me.”

With a wolfish grin, Gehrman moved one hand from Laurence’s face down to his cock, and an idling tendril to his own. Fingers wrapped almost double around Laurence’s bestial shaft, stroking it up and down, and another tentacle inched in with the first. Laurence’s hips bucked upwards into Gehrman’s hand. He cried out for him to go deeper, harder.

“How much?” Gehrman whispered, his lips almost touching Laurence’s pointed ear.

“All the way,” Laurence panted. “Hilt yourself, fill me, just give me more…”

Humming, licking and biting the shell of Laurence’s ear in approving response, Gehrman sat up and knelt between his spread legs, thighs nearly touching the sheets, resting his cock on top of Laurence’s -- and when Laurence looked, he saw that it had changed, too, and he could barely see the distinction between what was left of Gehrman’s leg and his prosthetic.

“You’re sure?”

“I'm certain, give it to me…”

Several tentacles snaked their way down to Laurence’s hole, prodding for entrance and stretching him well on their way in. A sizeable bulge formed just above his pelvis, expanding upwards and pushing out with their movements. Laurence watched, transfixed and red beneath the fur, pressing down on it only to hear Gehrman’s breathy laugh and see them retreat out of sight, then yelp as they came back up and hit his prostate hard.

“Still got it,” Gehrman muttered as he found a slow rhythm, taking both their cocks in hand and rubbing up against Laurence where he was most sensitive.

“Firmer. Keep it there, don't move too much, I'm close--”

Completion overtook Laurence and Gehrman wasn't too far behind, driving the tentacles deeper in and his cock harder against Laurence’s with a choked cry.

Their mouths met, stealing what little breath the other had, biting lips and tongue and tangling their fingers in each other’s hair. A little tendril brushed against the roof of Laurence’s mouth.

Laurence let himself sink into the bed as Gehrman made to make himself comfortable beside him, but in a flash he was yanked to the side, face to face with his friend and his arms pinned to his chest. The pressure in the air around them increased severely; a migraine blossomed in the back of Laurence’s skull, Gehrman’s fingers twitched on his neck and shoulder as the rest of his upper body was enveloped, restrained, by smooth tendrils.

His ears rang with the language of the Great Ones in his head, the voice of the Moon Presence.

_Enjoy your time._

He was released, and after a pause Gehrman dropped back down onto the mattress unceremoniously to hide his head under the pillow.

“Heinous _bitch,”_ he heard him mumble, distraught.


End file.
